Whats the significance of Cascade Delete property in a Link?

The Cascade Delete property in a Link object definition indicates what

action to perform on detail business component records of the link if the
master record is deleted.

The following three values are available for this property:

CLEAR. :If Clear, the foreign key reference is removed if the master record
is deleted, but the detail records remain in place.

DELETE. If Delete, the detail records are deleted along with the master.

NONE. If None, no operations are performed on the detail record in

response to deletion of the master, and the foreign key reference is not
removed.

Cascade Delete is not available for many-to-many links. With a many-to-

many link, Siebel applications will automatically delete the intersection
record but will leave the child record intact, as it may have other parents.

How can u say that the link relation is 1:M or M:M?

If the relationship is M:M the link definition will have a Inter table,
Inter parent column, Inter child column whereas in 1:M relationship will
have a source id and destination id.

When are link search spec used and when is BC Search spec used and
how they are combined in application?
The link search spec will be added to the child BC search spec only if the
link is active.
M:M Link:

Two link object definitions with opposite master-detail settings are used to
establish a many-to-many relationship based on
Intersection table.
Inter Table
Inter Parent Column
Inter Child

Column properties of the two Link object definitions are used to establish
the connection between the links and the intersection table. An example of
this type of link is the Opportunity/Account.

The intersection table is S_OPTY_ORG.

The Inter Child Column is OU_ID, which is the ID in the Account BC

The Inter Parent Column is OPTY_ID, which is the ID in the Opportunity